CA should give you more appreciation long-term plus your equity pay-down on an annual basis will be huge so the overall impact to your net-worth on a CA property should be similar, if not higher to what you would get out of state, you would just sacrifice on the cash flow front here in CA.

However, without a pro forma that accurately estimates all expenses and impacts to income, you do not know your true cash flow (in your case negative in all listed cases).  

My experience has been that when a condo owners association voted to impose a large special assessment they also line up financing for the condo owners who don’t have ready cash (except in NYC coop buildings where the “best” coops require any body purchasing a coop to have $100 million liquid!).  

Do you have any sort of body that the listing agent could file an ethics comolaint against you with?

I'm wondering how the University impacts the rental market there especially since students are almost 1/10th of the cities population.

I wouldn't imagine that it would matter but just covering all my bases.No, that would not negatively impact you or the plan I suggested.

Particularly in the Tiger Rd area where it isn't in the heart of Breck, but those larger houses are being impacted. 

SmallChange is probably your best bet if you are wanting to raise capital from non-accredited investors also, provided your project has social conscience and meets their impact investing standards.  

If your city has impact fees for new construction, you need to include those.You want to make $40-$50 per SF in profit. 

It'll have literally zero impact on you securing tenants.As fare as converting the two upper floors into residential, I would say this might be the better option given its a sleepy town, and most sleepy towns have a difficult time filling commercial vacancies.